British Trials – Vintage Off Road Motorsports

Thanks to Kate Sullivan at Hemmings Motor News we found this great short film above, of a 1903 Mercedes 60 h.p. taking part in the VSCC Herefordshire Trial. Turn up the sound and enjoy the very distinctive bark of its “F-Head” Mercedes engine. The location of the event is southwest of the city of Birmingham, England, in the western county called Herefordshire, where it was held earlier in March of this year. The video at the very bottom, shows a Vintage Bentley “Saloon” wallowing thru the same muddy corner but taking a much different approach to the situation.

To those readers unfamiliar with this type of competition, the VSCC explains it here: In essence, competing cars must climb sections of varying gradient and difficulty, being marked from 1 to 25 depending on how far you get. Each trial will typically have be- tween 8 – 14 sections for a one day, and 14 – 18 for a two day trial. All the VSCC’s Trials are Production Car Trials, which broadly speaking means that most road going cars will be suitable (depending more on whether the owner want to cover his pride and joy in mud)!

Just above we have photographs courtesy of photographer Stuart Matthews of the Light-view Photographic Company Ltd. located in the village of Martley in Worcester, England. The photos show a previous VSCC event called the “Winter Driving Tests” back when the ground was a bit firmer during the winter. Left to right we see a “Chain-Drive” Frazer Nash, a Bugatti, a Lancia and a Amilcar.

2 responses to “British Trials – Vintage Off Road Motorsports”

The picture VSCC 111 is not an Amilcar but a Vernon Derby.
Easy to make the mistake as they are quite similar. They were sold in UK by Vernon Ball who was the Amilcar agent in London and a well known racer with the cars.

Grant & Glen, Thanks for the corrections. If any of our readers from the UK or Europe know more about any of what we here in the States call “Foreign Cars” that we post, please speak up. Sometimes we only know enough about them to get ourselves into trouble.

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